Like a Prayer
by LuxKen27
Summary: On the first day of her sophomore year, Enid Rollins comes to terms with her tumultuous past – and looks to move forward in her new life at her new school. SVH pre-canon (sophomore year). Written for the Cotton Candy Bingo prompt finding self.


**Title: **Like a Prayer

**Author: **LuxKen27

**Fandom: **_Sweet Valley High_

**Universe: **Pre-canon (sophomore year)

**Genre: **General (Introspective)

**Rating: **T

**Warning:** Language

**Word Count:** 2,915

**Summary: ** On the first day of her sophomore year, Enid Rollins comes to terms with her tumultuous past – and looks to move forward in her new life at her new school.

_Author's note:_ Written for the Cotton Candy Bingo (Round Two) prompt: finding self.

**DISCLAIMER:** The _Sweet Valley__ High _concept, storyline, and characters are © 1983 – 2003 Francine Pascal/Bantam Books/Random House. No money is being made from the creation of this material. No copyright infringement is intended.

.xxxxx.

_Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone_

_I hear you call my name and it feels like home…_

"Are you sure you don't want a ride, honey?" her mother called from the kitchen, raising her voice over the sound of the running dishwasher.

She took one last look at herself in the foyer mirror, pushing a curly brown lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm sure," she replied, slinging her bag over her shoulder and straightening her beige cardigan over her powder blue dress. She reached for the front door, squeezing one clammy hand around the knob. "I'll see you later, Mom," she added, stepping out into the blindingly bright sunshine of the warm fall morning.

In spite of herself, she shivered, pulling her sweater tighter around herself as she slipped down the steps and headed for sidewalk. She stopped for a moment, closed her eyes and drew a deep, calming breath. _You can do this, Enid_, she told herself, adjusting her bag over her shoulder. _Just like they told you in rehab: take it one step at a time._

With that, she turned on her heel, taking one step at a time as she started down the sidewalk, heading for Sweet Valley High.

It still felt surreal sometimes. She never thought she'd be living in this pretty little town, in a tiny little house with her mother and little brother, walking down sun-dappled sidewalks lined with little white picket fences. Sweet Valley was nothing like Big Mesa – it was lush and green and beautiful, dotted with ranch-styles houses in sculpted subdivisions surrounding a bustling city center, all mere miles from the southern California coastline. It was where the beautiful people lived, people affluent enough to move away from towns like Big Mesa and Palisades – towns with more grit than green.

She'd grown up in Big Mesa, and she'd seen the best – and worst – of it. Her parents had never been wealthy, but they'd done all right; she and her brother had never wanted for anything, at least not at first. But then her mother lost her job, and her father started working longer and longer hours, trying to keep the family afloat. He descended into a perpetual bad mood, and her mother did little to soothe it, constantly nagging him when he came home – to do more around the house, to spend more time with his kids, to stop drinking so damn much.

She'd resented her mother for that. Her father worked hard, for miserable pay and an even more miserable manager. If he wanted to take the edge off with a couple of drinks, who was she to tell him otherwise? It always angered her to see the way her mother treated her father – her lack of patience and kindness, always harping on one unimportant thing or the other. And if she wasn't pestering her husband, she was pestering her kids, and was equally annoying about it.

As her parents' fighting escalated, she'd had her own sort of rebellion. She transformed herself from a skinny kid with too-long bangs and braces into a punk, with crazy clothes and outrageous makeup. She'd grown her hair out then shaved half her head; with her smudged black eye liner and blood-red lipstick, it hadn't taken long for her to attract the attention of the rough crowd at Big Mesa High.

The boys in that crowd had taken a special liking to her, and she to them – with their greased-back hair and leather jackets and torn jeans, she thought them wild and reckless and _perfect_. She might've only been thirteen, but she knew trouble when she saw it, and these guys were _definitely_ trouble.

Especially one.

George Warren was a fellow punk, already tall and lanky at fifteen, with slate grey eyes and a 1969 light blue GTO he'd been restoring with his older brother. The first time he'd ever said her name, she'd felt it reverberate through every nerve ending in her body, the hiss of the 'x' sliding down her spine and pooling in her abdomen.

Yes, George Warren and Alex Rollins had made quite a pair, and were almost inseparable from the start. He'd introduced her to cigarettes and blunts; she'd nicked some of her dad's booze and shared it with him and his friends, who soon became her friends as well. They used to skip class and congregate in the alley behind the high school, smoking and drinking and shooting the shit. Their mutual friends – their _crowd_ – had few cares and even fewer fucks to give, and she found that very comforting. With them, she could escape from her life.

She and George used to sit opposite each other in that narrow alley, their legs stretched out between them, and talk. In him, she found a soulmate – someone who understood her pain and her anger. They complained about their classes and siblings and parents. George's home life was equally shitty; he'd moved out and was living with his older brother in a crappy little apartment on the seedy side of town. He dabbled a little in drug dealing, but spent most of his free time working on the car with his brother, who was studying to become a mechanic. That car was his passion project; his eyes would sparkle whenever he got on a tear talking about it.

Her mother had hated it, of course, almost as much as she'd hated Alex's poor grades and even poorer class attendance record. Her father didn't give a damn, and since she sided with him more often than not, his attitude had practically become permission for her to continue her own personal rebellion, which included this boy, that car, and lots of mind-altering substances.

George had very quickly become the center of her universe, and she'd do anything for – and with – him. They spent most of their time together getting high and making out, sharing secrets and making confessions. She saw the hurt little boy behind his tough punk façade, and it only made her love him more.

And then, one day, it had all come crashing down – high on amphetamines, they'd taken George's GTO out for a joyride, careening through town and into the residential neighborhoods. They didn't even see the kid until they'd run over him, the sickening crack of bone and a bloodcurdling scream bringing them hurtling back to reality. She'd started crying and George had started panicking; the boy's mother had called for police and an ambulance and then it all became a surreal, slow motion blur. The police station. The humiliation of being arrested and fingerprinted and posed for mugshots. The horror of being separated from George, who'd gone white as a sheet at the scene and had been trembling in the back of the squad car. Her parents coming to collect her – her mother's tears, her father's rage.

As long as she'd live, she'd never forget that little boy's howls of pain – she still woke up in cold sweats at night.

Their trial was the last time she'd ever seen George. They were together at the defendants' table in family court, covertly holding hands as they sat squeezed between their court-appointed attorneys. Since it had been their first offense, both got off with probation, which meant two different things to their parents. For her parents, that meant rehab; for his, that meant shipping him off to military school halfway across the country.

She'd never even gotten to say goodbye.

Her life had turned a corner in rehab; she spent the summer doing the hard work of detoxing, coming to terms with her parents' unhappy marriage and eventual divorce, and hustling to finish her freshman year of high school. She'd dug deep, finding and confronting the roots of her problems, shedding her rebellious persona to emerge as, perhaps, the person she'd always wanted to be.

And, now, she was about to make that final break with her previous life.

"Enid," she murmured under her breath, clutching her bag close as she stood on a corner two blocks from her new school. She looked both ways before crossing the street, still trying out her new name. "Enid…"

She'd always hated her given name, thanks in no small part to the merciless teasing she'd endured as a kid, from cousins and classmates alike. They'd call her "_Ee_ny Rollins" in their sneering, mocking tones, and only upped the ante when she'd inevitably buckle under their taunting and start to cry. She'd started going by her middle name, Alex, after skipping first grade and putting some distance between her bullies and herself.

But Alex was the scared little girl who'd made herself into a punk, who'd done drugs and nearly killed an innocent little boy, who'd been sent to rehab by distraught parents. Enid was the person who'd emerged from that experience, and that was the person she so desperately desired to show her new classmates at Sweet Valley High.

Nobody knew her here. She could make a fresh start and put her past behind herself.

She hesitated as the school came into her view – ostentatious and otherworldly, with its columns and huge Roman-numeral clock facing out over a spacious front quad. She tugged the open halves of her cardigan around her torso, suddenly feeling very vulnerable and exposed. Would this be kindergarten all over again?

No. She wouldn't let it. She was stronger than that now.

"Hold your head high, Rollins," she commanded herself, lifting her chin. "You've earned this chance, so don't blow it."

With a quick glance in both directions, she crossed the street, stepping into her new life with resolute determination.

.xxxxx.

_Just like a muse to me, you are a mystery_

_Just like a dream, you are not what you seem…_

It was almost too easy.

She'd disappeared into the crowd of students swarming the halls of Sweet Valley High, before attending a nondescript meeting with the registrar in the front office to pick up her class schedule and locker assignment. Her presence was patently ignored in the hallways as she found her locker and stumbled around looking for her first class of the morning.

She could've wept with relief.

It wouldn't have been that way at Big Mesa High. _Everyone_ – from the principal to gawking classmates – would've been watching her like a hawk, scrutinizing her every movie. Her reputation had been torn to shreds after the accident; she'd been called every name in the book and even harassed by some of the snotty upperclassman, who thought they had the right to touch her in any way they pleased. It had gotten so bad that her mother had pulled her out of school two months before the end of her freshman year.

She'd had to work hard during the summer to pass all of her courses, and to do enough to transfer her credits to Sweet Valley. She'd even had space for an elective this year – creative writing, a subject she'd really gotten into while she was in rehab. It was her new obsession, and she'd heard good things about the SVH creative writing teacher.

She'd only just walked into the classroom when she suddenly felt her world tilt on its axis. _No way,_ she thought, her blood draining from her face as she stared disbelievingly at the pert blonde holding court on the front row. _This cannot be happening to me! I have to share a class with Jessica Wakefield?!_

Her stomach recoiled in horror as an ugly memory surfaced in the back of her mind. She'd been at the beach one early evening with George and a couple of their other friends. They'd lit a bonfire and were eating roasted marshmallows, and they were all stoned out of their minds. They were laughing uproariously over the pulsating rhythm of some bass-heavy music, blaring out at them from one of the guys' cars parked nearby, all of them in hysterics over the stickiness of the marshmallows. George had been encouraging her to try acid but she'd steadfastly refused, already feeling sick from the marshmallows.

Their little party had been crashed by a group of Sweet Valley kids, slumming it down the coast near Big Mesa for laughs. Two of them were known far and wide by reputation alone – the snotty Bruce Patman and his equally snobby neighbor from the hills, Lila Fowler – and their other friends were just as obnoxious. There was a willowy blonde in particular who had grated on her nerves, sidling up to George and flirtatiously bumming a cigarette off of him. Jessica Wakefield had been too gorgeous for words in her little black bikini and white short-shorts, and George's lingering stare on the backs of her tanned legs had made Enid's blood boil. The only way she'd gotten his attention back was by taking the acid he'd offered her. She'd suffered a bad trip, and had spent most of the night curled up in the sand next to a pool of her own vomit.

Enid took a step back, reaching out to steady herself against the door frame. _Please don't let her recognize me_, she thought wildly, her palms turning clammy as she shrank into herself. _Don't let her notice me and blow my cover and make this place as much of a living hell as Big Mesa was…!_

She was nearly startled out of her skin when someone bumped into her from behind. She whirled around, her skirt swishing over her legs as she stared up at a man she would've sworn was Robert Redford.

"Oh!" he chuckled, disarming her with a warm smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to run into you." He held out his hand. "I'm Roger Collins."

"Enid Rollins," she choked out, her eyes falling from his sandy blond hair and blue eyes to his open hand. She flushed, feeling incredibly stupid as he continued to smile at her.

"Well, Enid, it's nice to meet you," he replied, ushering her inside. "Won't you have a seat? Class is about to begin."

Enid swallowed hard, sliding into a seat in the row closest to the door. She could make an easy escape, if necessary…and, considering Jessica settled in the desk right next to her, that was looking like a very likely possibility, indeed.

Enid ducked her head, letting her hair fall over her face as Mr. Collins started the class. His voice was warm and friendly as he went through the roll and started talking a bit about their goals and objectives for the class. She fidgeted in her seat, clutching her pencil between white-knuckled fingers as she fought her immediate urge to flee.

All of her hard work over the summer could be dashed in a matter of seconds. Had she been kidding herself when she thought she might have a fresh start at a new school? Could her reputation have spread so far that even one mention of her (former) name would bring everyone up to speed on her shady past?

She was pretty sure she didn't want to find out.

"All right, we're going to start with a simple assignment," Mr. Collins was saying. "I'd like everyone to look to their right, except for those people in the row closest to the door – you guys look to your left."

Enid cringed, closing her hand around her pencil as she dared to look up and to her left. Jessica was looking at her, a pleasant smile on her face.

"Congratulations! You've met your partner for this first assignment," Mr. Collins said. "I'd like you to each take ten minutes and interview each other, then prepare a short statement introducing your partner to the rest of the class." He laughed at the good-natured groans that permeated the air. "I know, I know – most of you already know each other, but humor me. Try to find out something you don't know about your partner – something _nice_" – he gave the class a pointed look – "and report that to the rest of the class."

_Oh, God, this is my worst nightmare_, Enid thought. _Being introduced to SVH by Jessica Wakefield? Kill me now!_

"Hi," her partner said, sticking out her hand. "I don't think we've met. I'm Elizabeth Wakefield."

Enid's jaw dropped. _Elizabeth?!_ she echoed silently, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest. _You mean – this isn't – ?_

Elizabeth furrowed her brow. "A-am I wrong?" she asked with an embarrassed flush. "Have we met?"

Enid managed to regain her composure. "Um – no, I don't think so. I'm Enid – Enid Rollins." She took Elizabeth's hand in her own and gave it a firm shake.

"It's nice to meet you, Enid," Elizabeth replied with a warm smile. "Listen, do you mind if I go first? I'd like to be a reporter someday, so this assignment is right up my alley."

"Oh, sure, go right ahead," Enid replied grandly, practically doing cartwheels in her head at her good fortune. She could only hope her smile wasn't as dopey as it felt.

"Great!" Elizabeth turned in her desk, holding her pen poised over her notebook. "So, Enid, tell me about yourself."

Enid considered her partner for a long moment, taking in her sparkling blue-green eyes and friendly expression. It was as if Jessica the ingénue had morphed into an actual human being. Could there really be two of them? Twins, maybe? _I know what my first question will be_, she thought amusedly.

"Well," she mused, tucking her brown curls behind her ears, "where should I begin?"


End file.
